Duels in the Dark
by gravityfeelsx
Summary: Hogwarts Mental Asylum wrestles with children seemingly insane, hopeless. Potter, babbling about the "wizarding world" and his fights with "Voldemort." Granger, OCD and self-harm. Malfoy, kleptomaniac and liar. ..But every wild child has a shackled foot and a broken childhood. Delve deeper into the story of this misfit family, and find the stories behind their duels in the dark.
**Duels in the Dark**

Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, is trapped in a vicious circle by the "Dark Lord Voldemort" and the rest of the "wizarding world." Hermione Granger struggles with drug abuse and extreme cases of OCD. Draco Malfoy seems to have an unreasonably hard time with telling the truth and keeping his hands to himself. - These are just some of the many patients at the Hogwarts Mental Asylum, run by Albus Dumbledore, but you will soon see that there is much more to them than meets the eye. AU, somewhat weird.

 **[A/N & DISCLAIMER] I am not JK Rowling, I am a fangirling mess. I didn't write the amazing deliciousness that is Harry Potter, in case you thought I did and wanted to send an ambulance over to my place. HAHA XD**

I. DUELING IN THE DARK

 _If you were to take a peek at the Hogwarts Mental Asylum late in the night, you would see a neat row of beds, each one containing a more-or-less normal looking child, but there was much more to the children. No, most of them were not sleeping-some tossed and turned, others moaned, and once in awhile the banging on and possible cracking of a wall could be heard._

 _SOMETHING was on each of their troubled little minds._

 _But if you were to zoom in on the mind of the skinny boy with the messy dark hair and the lightning-shaped scar on his forehead, you would see something very different from the dark little bedroom.._

Imagine a baby's room, crib, mobile and all, but a _wreckage_ of a baby's room, the _remains_ of what _used_ to be a baby's room. Picture a lovely woman who used to be your mother, sprawled on the floor, lifeless and gone.

A hooded figure swings toward the middle of the room and the boy inside it, who once cherished this room so much, sees it now as an _arena_ , a place to fight his archenemy, none other than the Dark Lord, Voldemort.

They are armed with magic sticks-wands, he called them. Voldemort has the better wand, of course, as most of the villains do, but that isn't stopping Harry.

And each night, they duel. Adrenaline rushes through the boy as the thought of his parents, his beloved parents, _dead_ -because of this man, fuels his strength to _fight_. Flashes of green, red, gold light plague his eyes. They would blur his sight later in the day, but not so much as the sick, metallic grin on his enemy's face.

Tonight he is better than usual. _Disarm, stupefy, disarm, stupefy, protego, stupefy, stupefy.._ it is a routine by now.

And then, just when all seems like it is going well, just when he can begin to see the slivering chance that he could possibly beat this monster and avenge his parents, IT IS ALL GONE.

In retrospect, he didn't know what he was doing wrong. Maybe he'd been pushed, or perhaps a Charm had been placed on him.

But he always seemed to lapse here, in this _part_ , go blank, so he never knew how it happened. But somehow, in the end, he _always ended up on the ground, with Voldemort towering over him, snickering, outright amused at his seemingly futile attempts._

"No matter how hard you try, you just can't win, can you?"

The man's voice is a snarl. Harry, suddenly sapped of strength, tries to block out the laughing man in vain. More beads of sweat form on his forehead as his wand skids out of reach; the image of his mother falling like a marionette without strings, the last bit of life in her green eyes vanishing still fresh in his mind.

Voldemort bends down easily and picks up Harry's wand, twirling it airily in his hands. "Did you honestly think you could beat me, _Voldemort_ , the Dark Lord, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named? Please, boy. You're just another pawn, another stepping stone in my story of greatness, my conquest for power. Your _parents_? Nothing compared to what's coming to you."

Harry feels a burst of helplessness envelop over him. "Not today," he growls.

"What?"

"I SAID - NOT TODAY!"

 _The ward was awakened by a cry for help, a cry in anger, the cry of a lost soul in need of support. Groans, fellow screams, and a bit of pandemonium were met with this yell, from the other children._

 _Harry looked around, shaking. Blinking, he could make out a girl with bushy hair, sitting by his bedside. Her eyes were tearful. She put a comforting hand over his shoulder, sisterly._

 _He struggled for words, in shock from being pulled from the wizarding world so quickly. "I... Hermione - it was -"_

 _"Don't worry, Harry. It was just another nightmare."_

 **[A/N:] Hiii! Thanks for reading! :) If you could, please review. Constructive criticism is much appreciated.**


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